The invention relates to a point-to-multipoint telecommunication system comprising at least one upstream unit and at least two downstream units for sending cells from at least one upstream unit to at least two downstream units, with at least one overhead cell supplying system information and neighbouring at least a first number of data cells.
Such a point-to-multipoint telecommunication system is for example based upon a standardised frame structure like for example G.983.1, in which one overhead cell supplies system information and neighbours 27 following (neighbouring) data cells.
A prior art point-to-multipoint telecommunication system is known from U.S. Pat. No. 5,978,374, which is hereby incorporated by reference and which discloses in its abstract a headend facility (upstream unit) and downstream network units (downstream units) for, as shown in its FIG. 2, downstreaming one framing cell (overhead cell) followed by 89 ATM cells (first number of data cells) and so on.
The known point-to-multipoint telecommunication system is disadvantageous, inter alia, due to being designed for a specific format.